Putin casts a long shadow
Re: Waiting For The Sellout, Fr. Raymond de Souza, July 26.
I agree with Fr. Raymond de Souza’s analysis of NATO and the threat that Russian President Vladimir Putin may invade the three Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. During the Second World War, these small counties were invaded by Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union. After the war, they were forced to become part of the Soviet Union, for which western powers are at least partly responsible.
After he met Hitler in 1938, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain declared “peace for our time.” In a similar vein, recently declassified British war cabinet minutes reveal that after Winston Churchill met Stalin in 1945, he declared “Stalin I’m sure means well to the world, he will not embark on bad adventures.” Stalin’s record as a bloodthirsty dictator was well known, yet Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt ceded the Baltic countries, and most of the rest of Eastern Europe, to Stalin.
Millions of people were condemned to live for almost a half-century under communist dictatorships. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Baltic countries have had a brief period of independence, which now is threatened by Putin’s Russia. With Donald Trump as U.S. president, we may see a replay of Chamberlain in 1938 and Churchill in 1945.